


The Body is a Soft House

by FeuillesMortes



Category: 15th Century CE RPF, Richard III - Shakespeare
Genre: (and a little bit of angst), Childbirth, Family Bonding, Family Fluff, Gen, Period-Typical References to Catholicism, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28585665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeuillesMortes/pseuds/FeuillesMortes
Summary: Margaret Beaufort, now the King's Mother, must aid her son's wife in her hour of need. She could not have predicted it would bring back memories of the day of her greatest joy, and her greatest pain.
Relationships: Margaret Beaufort & Elizabeth of York Queen of England & Henry VII of England, Margaret Beaufort Countess of Richmond and Derby & Elizabeth of York Queen of England
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17
Collections: Histories Ficathon XI





	The Body is a Soft House

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MusicalManiacTooFarFromAStage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalManiacTooFarFromAStage/gifts).



SAINT SWITHIN’S PRIORY  
Winchester, England  
September 1486

The young queen held the eagle stone very tightly inside her palm and did not let go. Margaret recalled seeing the very same stone years before during the birth of Princess Bridget, late Queen Elizabeth’s last labour. The stone rattled this way and that way, the smaller seed inside struggling to break free from its hard enclosure in a ceaseless, rather frantic attempt at escape. The child inside the queen’s body seemed to endeavour just the same now. The girl looked thoroughly flushed among the crimson satin covers of her pallet, a play of red on red, the low bed positioned at the foot of the bed of state she would be occupying later, God willing. Margaret had arranged it to be covered with ermine-lined scarlet, had ordered it to be embroidered with crimson velvet-upon-velvet and decorated with head sheets in cloth-of-gold furred with ermine, so next to the queen’s golden hair, the red and the gold would create the very image of royalty come to life that she wished to project. The crimson canopy hanging over the young queen now looked more like the wings of a fiery creature or a wash of blood just waiting to engulf her whole.

 _Stop this nonsense at once,_ Margaret chided herself, these _are but your fears that speak._

Sheets, panes, cradles, the carpeting and the bedding, cupboards stocked with plates and supplies and food, reliquaries, prayer books, the exact amount of yards of linen and number of cushions for the beds: those were details that Margaret could dwell on and dedicate much of her time keeping company with the queen in confinement, industriously writing down every detail and outlines of protocol, changing and adapting what she had seen be done during the late Queen Elizabeth’s time. Margaret only knew how to keep herself moving, overriding the great leaps of her heart and the bottled memories that insisted on rising to the surface during those long late-night hours since the young queen had started her labour. It was easier to give order to the servants, to order fresh linens to be brought or the fire to be stoked, than to look at her son’s wife go through her anguished travails. 

The weakness of her heart surprised her. Why, the queen’s lying-in was much different than Margaret's own had been, Lord be praised. Princess— _Queen_ Elizabeth, that was, the new queen, endured her pain with great patience and perseverance, willingly allowing herself to be cheered and humoured by her chatting ladies-in-waiting and midwives. As soon as her pains had started, the midwife in charge and her apprentice had taken the queen to a walk around the room so as to ease out her suffering, leading her gently by the hand. At that sight, the queen’s aunt, Duchess Katherine, had pronounced her walk to be her stately procession, so to the cheering and laughing of her two sisters Cecily and Anne, the young Queen Elizabeth had smiled and waved, smiled and waved, taking step after step in her white shift. 

The queen now could hardly stand, lying against her pallet bed and holding her eagle stone with one hand and her mother’s arm with the other. The midwife’s apprentice was rubbing an oil mixture of lilies, almonds and roses on top of the queen’s womb, murmuring sweet and soothing nothings; Anne, the queen’s sister, read from the Gospels. The queen breathed by short gasps, her mouth sometimes the shape of a small ‘o’, sometimes the distorted line of a smile stretched too far onto one’s cheeks, teeth sinking on her bottom lip. A silent tear leaked out from the corner of her right eye and rolled down towards her ear.

“I see it crowning!” The midwife shouted from the low stool placed between the queen’s legs, making every one of her ladies step close and press their heads together. “Alice, quickly! Quickly, come here!”

Marjory Cobbe had been the late queen’s favourite midwife, as Margaret remembered, and so she had been reasonably trusted with the birth of her son’s heir. At that moment, she directed her apprentice to place many towels in preparation for receiving the baby, touching the queen most uncomfortably down below. The scene was striking: Duchess Katherine and Lady Darcy had started to whisper with each other, Princess Cecily stared in a mixture of awe and fear, the queen’s mother cooed Elizabeth, stroking her cheek, and Margaret, who so far had been sat on the other side of the queen’s head, rose to her feet in a hurry, feeling the surge of desperation and need to see the coming of the baby. 

“Breathe and push, Your Grace. Breathe, and push.” Marjory spoke in a disturbingly tranquil voice to the queen, who may or may have not heard her over her own moans and whines. “Breathe, and push. Breathe, and push, breathe... Ladies please, uncross your hands, uncross your legs and ankles! We have a baby coming through!”

Everyone stared at the spent, swollen body of that mother caught in an instant between agony and bliss. She had become a vessel, a pure instrument of selfless abnegation carrying the beat of a second heart in name of a kingdom. In the dark, yellow-lighted room, the stuffy air trapped by the cloth of arras covering the walls, the body of that mother-to-be had become the saving life raft that would see them through the storm of the night, delivering them to the safety of the shore of a new era, Margaret’s son’s reign that had just begun. The women stared and stared, and the child hardly moved. 

“Blessed Mary, full of grace, Holy Mary be my haven!” The queen cried out her prayer as if the words were punched out of her rather than spoken, no more ease air to push them off her throat. “Mary Mother of God, make haste—be my peace! O Mary our Mother—help—Blessed Lady—help me!” She had let go of her eagle stone and was clutching the Westminster girdle that had once belonged to the Blessed Virgin, cordially lent by the monks of the Abbey for the delivery of the king's heir. The girl shot a desperate, shot-through-tears look at the dowager queen at her shoulder. “Mother!”

 _Mother!_ Such a sincere, anguished cry! Had not Margaret cried the same during her labour, twenty-nine years ago? Of course, at that time, her mother had been miles away in England, at Bletsoe with her siblings, while Margaret had lain in a dark room surrounded by strangers, a place too cold for comfort despite the roaring fire. Snow had been falling heavily outside the window all night, an infinite stretch of frozen white lands stood between her and her mother, and in the chaos of that expectation, without compassion, without hope, Margaret had not thought of anything else beyond her own annihilation. How many times that night had she crushed her lips in prayer? 

It took an immense amount of effort for Margaret to send those scenes back to the corners of her mind. She ran back to sit by the queen’s shoulder. _Movement,_ physical movement was her only refuge and solace _._ Margaret had always needed to move between words and actions to escape the trappings of her own emotions.

“Keep reading!” She told Princess Anne in a hissed breath, rather more harshly than she would have liked it. The princess had stopped her recitation of the Gospels to stare at her sister with wild, startled eyes and a gaping mouth. Margaret had been but her age when she had gone through labour — she knew the scene was frightening enough to shake the hearts of any young lady, but she could not help herself at that time.

She arrived at the side of the queen — _her daughter_ , not by blood but by choice, and above all by God’s will — and took one of her hands in her own. The dowager queen was wiping the young mother’s brow and cheek with a cloth, telling her to be calm as the midwife’s assistant pushed down on the top of her womb in sync with the queen’s efforts at pushing, as if to help her expel her baby from the inside. The young queen yelped in pain, Princess Cecily was as white as an apparition, and the voice of every other lady rose in an improvised song of _push, push, push_ that would have echoed if not for the planned barriers of sound. Margaret felt her hand gradually crushed as the young queen went through another wave of pain and yelped again.

“Elizabeth, look at me. Look at me, dear.” Margaret searched the queen’s eyes to tell her what she wished her own mother had said to her, all those years ago. The young woman moved her eyes with a certain numbness and difficulty that told she was looking at things, but perhaps not seeing them, through a thick curtain of fog. Margaret nodded at her very slowly. “Courage now, dear, take heart. All shall be well.” She held the queen’s large enquiring eyes and said it again. “All shall be well.”

 _All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well_ , that was what Mother Julian, the anchorite of Norwich had written in her _Revelations of Divine Love_ , a book that Margaret cherished dearly. What was it that Margaret’s confessor had told her, that time she had reflected back on how much heartache she had endured bringing her son to life? _God expunged us from our sins by the shedding of His Blood_. Men could only conquer by suffering. _Why, my lady,_ he had asked her in his amused old-man voice, the gentle words punctuated by mirth, his eyes earnest and luminous, _did you think that joy was some light thing?_ No. Joy was the heaviest thing in the world. Only a mother could walk while carrying the weight of more than what the skin could hold.

Elizabeth, red-cheeked and misty-eyed, graced Margaret with a thin smile, the flash of her pearly teeth too much of an effort compared to her exhaustion now. Yet, there came a rather sudden and collective gasp, half-surprise and half-relief. 

The midwife started. “The child is coming!” 

“Shall we move her to her chair now, madam?” The assistant asked, rather too abruptly not to be alarming. 

Without apparent reason, Margaret was struck with a wave of nauseating fear. She had not read any mention of a birthing chair in the lying-in ordinances of the last two queens, nor had Queen Elizabeth resorted to one in her last two deliveries. Nevertheless, Margaret had ordered one to be brought to Winchester, an aside, not even registered in the new ordinances she had compiled. What was that sudden urgency for that item now? Had Margaret used a chair to deliver Henry on his day? How could she recall it when that night had been nothing but an opaque blur in her mind? The midwife, a local wisewoman from Pembrokeshire, had tried everything — of that Margaret was sure by feeling alone — and had, ultimately, succeeded in saving mother and son. _God's will_. 

“Yes, yes, Alice! Go and fetch it now, quickly!” The assistant ran to the next room to bring a curious-looking, three-legged furniture that looked more like a stool than a chair. In a somewhat self-conscious way, the midwife raised her gaze to look at Margaret, she who so far had been the one the midwife had answered to. Mistress Cobbe had a strongly marked face and eyes that looked straight at any person, but her courage was rather mild now. “Her Grace’s delivery is progressing very well, my lady.” She paused with uncharacteristic reflection. “I swear upon my soul.” 

Margaret’s heart, that plushy red cushion that had just now sunken low to the pit of her stomach, bobbed back to its place inside her ribcage. The women all moved to help Elizabeth onto the chair while Margaret could do nothing but watch as the young queen clung to her mother’s arm yet again in her most wondrous effort, that of turning her body into the instrument of her mind. She observed as the young queen grimaced and breathed by short intakes of air, for there was nothing else to arrange or see too, only wait for the hand of God to perform the work of his will.

Clutching the rosary beads dangling from the girdle around her waist, she tried to recall a prayer to any of the saints dedicated to the cause of pregnant and labouring women: Saint Elizabeth, Saint Margaret of Antioch, Saint Anne, Saint Bridget — whose reliquary was just now in the room, brought over by the queen’s own family — Saint Catherine of Vadstena, Saint Joseph...

She settled for the prayer that had never failed her, the most powerful protection against the devil and the demons who lurked around the corners, bloodthirst, as mother and infant stood suspended on the brink of fate, somewhere between death and life: the Creed. Faith had always been Margaret’s only shield. _I believe in God, the Father Almighty._

“ _Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem,_ ” Margaret said aloud, words powered by the full strength of her chest in prayer.

“ _Creator of heaven and earth,_ ” Lady Darcy followed her in Latin, before she was quickly joined by the queen’s sisters. _“—and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.”_

At that particular moment, all the women in the room gathered around the queen and spoke as a single voice.

_“—who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried—”_

_He descended into hell._

Elizabeth looked around herself with the glassy-eyed stare of someone who was too far away to even discern words and sounds from each other. There was a certain absorbed abstractiveness about her face but unmistakable traces of willful courage as well, a pull tensioning the arch of her eyebrows.

_He ascended into heaven._

Margaret felt herself go softer. If the human heart at the moment of prayer was acceptable evidence, should not all men rejoice at every given opportunity to place oneself inside God’s hand, the self nothing but a piece of glass dropping from some great height, flight and ecstasy, freefall without a sound, not shattering but dissolving because of His Love?

_“—I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting—”_

“We have a baby!”

_Amen._

Everyone inside that chamber wavered at once like stalks in a windy field, caught in a moment of suspension and arrest, then went very still. Inside the midwife’s arms, soiled and red and wrapped in blood-stained linens, the child let out a strong cry.

“It’s a boy!” declared the midwife, giving the baby a surgical head-to-toe look. “A perfect boy!”

 _A boy_ , the voices repeated, one after the other. _A boy, a boy, a boy! A boy? A **boy**!_

Margaret clasped her hands over her mouth as a pair of tears slid down her cheeks, eyes gazing into the deep ultramarine blue of the tapestries spotted with golden fleur-de-lis covering the room’s ceiling. _Amen, oh Lord, amen_. The strength of her smile was so great it threatened to tear her cheeks apart.

“My son—" She almost choked on the words. "—the King has an heir! A prince!”

It struck her how strong her voice persisted despite the whirlwind of her emotions, how her heart so quickly set into an easy course that anticipated sunshine days to come, one rolling after another, round, smooth and flawless. All around her, Margaret heard exclamations praising her son’s wife and child as the baby cried, having his umbilical cord cut, then being anointed with the priory’s powdered frankincense. _Praised be Jesu!_ A group of the queen's women had knelt by the makeshift altar displaying St Bridget’s finger reliquary and an image of Our Blessed Lady; they were engrossed in their prayers for the safety and prosperity of the prince, the queen, and their king.

Meekly, tired, Elizabeth watched her baby be washed in a silver basin and cleaned with a mixture of wine, herbs and milk. Her expression was at once peaceful and plaintive. As the baby whined and cried, she repeated the word over and over again in a silent articulation of her lips that allowed no sound to take shape: _a boy._ Lost in her profound sighs and exhalations, she did not seem to be truly staring at the prince, but at a different _something_ not really human, or perhaps a little bit beyond human. At the sight, Margaret and the dowager queen exchanged an alarmed look. It was with a certain indifferent curiosity that the young queen turned to her mother now as the older woman touched her cheek and searched her eyes. The two Elizabeths looked very much alike, as much as the image in a pool is like the landscape of the day reflected over it.

“Bessie, my sweet, it’s a boy.”

They watched as the queen's facial lines gradually rearranged themselves at her mother’s statement.

“A boy.” She murmured, and then, with sudden agitation, extending her arms towards the baby, she pleaded. “Let me see him! Please, let me see him!”

No one could have been gladder to comply with her wish. The midwives were just finishing to rub the baby with a mixture of rose and almond oil to close his pores so that no foul demon could harm him by air alone. Margaret stepped forward and took the baby from their arms. The dowager queen Elizabeth had been previously appointed as the prince’s godmother, Margaret knew as much — she had even privately suggested it to the king herself — but at that moment, Margaret wanted to be the first person to hold her grandchild, her miraculously royal grandchild. She had earned as much: Margaret was the beds and the cradles, the linen sheets, the ermine furred cushions, the velvet mantles, the covers of cloth-of-gold, the scarlet canopy, the embroideries of crowns and arms and roses — she was each and every stitch and line woven into the tapestries. She knew every tool, every glittering plate, sheet and servant. Margaret expected of everyone the best they could do, and no more.

Cradling her grandson, it was with enormous, thunderous pleasure that she placed him in his mother’s arms. The child let out a few whines. Elizabeth looked at him with great concern at first, but just as it looked as if she was going to let down her tears, she issued the lightest of laughs. 

“He’s so small!” At that, she shot a quick, careful glance at her mother. “Or maybe not, I haven’t seen a baby in years... and yet! See how red he looks! Just like a little beetroot!” The young queen said with a certain innocent ingenuity, completely ignoring the fact that her own face looked exceedingly flushed. “Beetroot baby, baby prince. Boy, baby. Baby boy.” She singsonged as she rocked him a bit in her arms, carefully, but with much tenderness. “Blessed be my baby.”

“Well, dear," Margaret smiled. "The king also looked small on his day—” 

_—and look how tall he is today,_ Margaret was about to say, when it dawned on her all the similarities the baby shared with her son at the time of his birth: the small round ears, the scarce and too light, almost white hair, the small bud of his chin. How could Margaret remember all that? Did all babies resemble their sires at birth? When Sir Owen, Margaret's good father ( _God rest his soul_ ), had told her that Henry looked just like Edmund had as a baby, Margaret tried to conjure an image of her husband in mind, shook her head, and asked: _Does he?_

“He looks just like his father.” The young queen smiled at her baby in wonder, her voice close to a murmur. “Look at him, he’s got no eyebrows!” A stream of sweetness ascended to the air, turned into laughter, to honey, to darling, to love.

 _Baby boy._ Margaret was seized by the unyielding need to see her son. She excused herself just as the baby started to whine harder and heard them send for the wetnurse to be brought into the room. As she crossed the outer chamber’s door, Margaret was first struck by how light—how garish—and cold the hall felt in comparison to the queen’s chambers those late hours. She blinked uncomfortably for a second as she was greeted by a small crowd of curious onlookers and courtiers. _What is it, my lady? What did the queen have? A boy or a girl? A prince or a princess?_ She noticed a small group of friars who had been at singing but had, holding their psalters now, ceased in expectation. Margaret held herself very solemn and refused to be demanded any questions, but called a page to her side and asked him in a very loud and clear voice.

“Do you know where the King’s Grace is, boy?"

“No,” The sleepy boy mumbled in his white and green livery, then opened his eyes very large and tripped over his words. “Yes-yes, my lady. Pardon me, the king is at-at the chapel with the prior. And-and a few other lords as well.” The page bowed. “My lady.”

Margaret was pleased. _Probably on his knees at prayer, no doubt_. At that moment, she felt the weight of the eyes of every present spectator and she grew even more pleased.

“Run and go to wheresoever His Grace is, then, and tell him…” She paused longer that it was necessary, testing the abrupt silence and smiling slightly, even wryly. “.... and tell him that His Grace has a son!” The crowded started murmuring. “A prince! Tell him the king has an heir!”

The murmur broke into loud exclamations of praise and thanksgiving. _Go now,_ she told the boy, _be sure the king will reward you most handsomely on this day._ The boy went off in a sprint as all those knights, lords and friars gathered in the hall started clapping, howling and cheering. Margaret stood in place as they took off their hats and lauded her as if they did the prince himself. Victory was sweet but no more so than the mercy of God. _All of them will see now how God smiles at my son_. _One by one, they will see. One by one._

She spun on her heels and went back inside, welcoming the darkness anew. Margaret had the greatest wish in the world to tell the news to her son herself — she was sure he would take her hands and kiss them, _My own dearest mother,_ he would say, _I thank you most heartily on this happy day_ — but she also knew he would ask after his wife’s health and good cheer, and Margaret was not perfectly sure about those. The queen had sounded too oddly detached but also unexpectedly bubbly for a person like Margaret not to be concerned. 

She arrived at the inner room just as they had put the queen on her pallet and were massaging her womb with oils for the release of the afterbirth. Again, the queen clung to her mother’s hand, even though she looked decidedly more listless this time. Margaret stepped closer to the wetnurse breastfeeding her grandson the prince, a burly woman with contrastingly delicate eyebrows but born out of good healthy stock. She greeted Margaret timidly and tried to rise up to her feet to greet her, but Margaret insisted that they could be done with protocol at that time. Her grandson sucked eagerly enough at her beast in his swaddled bands, she supposed, and Duchess Katherine was kind to reassure her they had slathered a spoonful of wine and sugar on his lips, palate and tongue to inspire good health, fortitude and appetite. All was well, and smooth, and beautiful.

The prince was put to rest in his sleeping cradle moments later, a smaller one made of wood, hung with silver and gilt pommels and covered with ermine — smaller, that was, compared to the prince’s five-foot-long cradle of state painted with red and white roses combined. Margaret rejoined the young queen on her pallet as they finished washing her with clean sponges and wet cloth. The girl looked utterly spent, but they could not allow her to sleep yet. The queen’s mother, aunt, sisters and ladies all gathered around her to chat and cheer her for a stretch of time. Elizabeth looked exceedingly sleepy; the room was warm and body-close: one could close their eyes and mistake those tapestry-clad walls for skin, just like the womb of a woman and its seven layers, a compact tiny universe held together and entire. 

The queen wasn’t as much leading the conversation as she was listening and replying to the questions of her ladies. Now that she was washed and cleaned and her flush had subdued to a rosy complexion, her beauty was more expansive than usual, and it stirred the same desire in every heart to touch and talk to her. She smiled and looked with extreme solicitude at every one of her ladies, but as the conversation died out, and the ladies set to their books and hoops of embroidery, the young queen did not issue further sound. She grew so quiet she was almost like the morning, dawn peaking through her hair strands. It struck Margaret that she was perhaps too still for a hostess or a mother who had just given birth, and perhaps she would benefit from having something to do with her hands. Margaret planted her feet on the floor to fetch her embroidery kit — she was prepared to call the queen back to herself and keep her from sleeping — but the girl actually laid her hand on her wrist before Margaret could take her first step.

“My dear Lady Margaret,” She spoke, it seemed, with infinite patience and a great deal of warmth. “I have seen you moving around so many times these past few weeks. Are you not tired? Do you not, perchance, wish to rest?” She looked very insistently into her eyes, blinking. "I can make space for you on the pallet."

It seemed her instinct to sympathise with another human being was strong enough to pull her from her clouded stupor and state of exhaustion. Margaret took her hand.

“Your Grace, you see, some need rest so their minds can be at peace.” She told the queen in a low voice, mindful of the presence of other people in the room. “I, on the other hand, need movement and action.”

The young queen frowned, just slightly. “Why is that?”

“Well, some days… days like this one... they remind me of the day my Henry was born.” Margaret felt she had to look down. “It was not particularly easy.”

“You were very young at the time, were you not, Lady Margaret?”

Margaret had the distinct recollection that she had told part of her story to Elizabeth when she had been just a princess. Her memory was most marvellous, and clear, and sharp, in everything with the exception of her son's birth. Margaret grasped the fingers squeezing her own and met the queen’s clouded but gentle gaze, her unguarded and honest face.

“Dear child,” Margaret murmured, but stopped abruptly, fearing sentimentality. She realised she was on the verge of tears.

The queen spent some time brushing Margaret’s knuckles, gently, slowly, with the soft pad of her thumb. “God is good and beautiful…” Looking at no point in particular, she seemed to be speaking to no one and everyone at the same time. “... and I think I saw His face today.”

Margaret frowned, caught in the worry of a moment, then realised the queen had been talking about her child. _Poor girl,_ had it already crossed her mind that she would not see her child growing up, at least not from up close, just like Margaret had not seen Henry?

“My head aches so I shall sleep for a while,” Elizabeth said, closing her eyes. “You won’t mind it very much, will you?”

Raising her hand, Margaret brushed a few hair strands off the queen's forehead gingerly. “No, child, I will not mind.” 

At Edward's court, Margaret had seen the queen grow from child to woman. She had watched Princess Elizabeth turn into a beautiful maiden, a jewel, no more precious for her beauty than she was for her sweetness. She could never have asked for a better wife for her son, and now, the girl had given him a child with the most moving willingness and serene humbleness. All those years Margaret had remained at a respectful distance, but presently, she allowed herself to lean forward and press a kiss to her temple regardless of whether the girl’s mother would approve of it or not. Elizabeth was her daughter too now, after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> *
> 
> Historical Note: all the details about pregnancy and childbirth were taken from the following bibliography: _Elizabeth of York: Queenship and Power_ by Arlene Okerlund; _Elizabeth of York and Her Six Daughters-in-law: Fashioning Tudor Queenship 1485-1547_ by Retha Warnicke; _In Bed with the Tudors: the Sex Lives of a Dynasty from Elizabeth of York to Elizabeth I_ by Amy Licence; _The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503_ by Joanna L. Laynesmith. Apologies if any detail is wrong.
> 
> A very happy new year for my giftee 🥺💖


End file.
